1 post tagged “the daily show”

I've already posted the anti-drug music video "Stop the Madness" over on my LJ,but I wanted to continue the substance-abuse theme over here for a minute.  A couple of days ago I was shown the ridiculousness that is the Pee Wee Herman anti-crack ad, as shown at left.

I guess one can compare and contrast the message of this ad with the message of Blow, which Paul Reubens was also in.  Blow was not exactly a pro-drug movie, but Reubens did play a very cool, calm, and collected cocaine dealer.  And, of course, Blow was made by Ted Demme, who died from a heart-attack while playing basketball high on coke.  A very interesting career path for Pee Wee.  Although I'm guessing that after being caught jerking off in a porno theatre and arrested on child porn charges, there's not a lot of public service announcement jobs being thrown his way.  (As Tina Fey once said, where would America be comfortable with Pee Wee Herman masturbating?)  And speaking of masturbating in a porno theatre and doing handfuls of cocaine, avoid Jack Nicholson's ludicrous performance in The Departed if you can.  Unless you'll be seeing it at the Magic Johnson Theatre in Harlem, where the crowd reaction to said ludicrous performace will be vastly more entertaining than the movie itself.

I've also recently been reminded of the Even Stevphen segment on The Daily Show a couple of years back where Steve Carell gets rip-roaring drunk and thought I would post it here.  I've found a number of webpages that say Steve did an interview claiming that he did actually get drunk and puke in Stephen Colbert's car, but not the actual interview, so I remain skeptical.  Not that The Daily Show is a bastion of responsible journalism (embarassingly better than most news on TV but still a comedy show at heart), but there's no way anyone could conscientiously watch someone down about 15 drinks in two hours and then FILM IT.  Even the drunk-mom episode of Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days only made the mom drink 4 drinks.  But then again, she was a total lightweight and that show is annoying.  Anyway. 

I've grown to love Steve Carell in the last two years, especially his bit part in Anchorman, which totally made the movie.  I find that interesting, because he irritated the hell out of me on The Daily Show most of the time.  Produce Pete, in particular, was oddly unengaging.  (I did like the theme song to "Slimming Down with Steve", though.)  And in the first season of The Office, he was thoroughly unlikeable, which I supposed was the point but made it difficult to watch.  Once Michael Scott became a more sympathetic character, it may have corrupted the spirit of the original show, but made it a more emotionally complex program.  And I liked not having to look at his combed-back hair-pluggy hair, which, again, was funnier but kind of gruesome to look at.  To this day, I wonder whether they thinned his hair out in the first season or gave him ACTUAL but convincing hair-plugs in real life.  Or maybe just combing his hair differently made that big a difference.  I still think he looks best with his wannabe-Jim-Halpert hair in the episode "The Secret".